"In My Room:" Brian Wilson spent most of his time looking out his bedroom window

Rob Tannenbaum wrote June 12 in the New York Times:

In songs like “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” “California Girls” and “Good Vibrations,” Wilson did as much as anyone to depict Los Angeles and California as a land of bikinis and warm, honey-colored sunsets. The songs he wrote about the West Coast, he said in “I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir,” were “more about the idea of going in the ocean than they were about actually going in the ocean.” Wilson didn’t like waves, but realized how they could serve as a metaphor for life.

Wilson tried surfing once and his board conked him on the head. He liked looking out windows at other people surfing and driving hot rods. Tannenbaum went on:

The songs, he added, tell stories about teenagers. 'We base them on activities of healthy California kids who like to surf, hot rod, and engage in other outdoor fun.' He saw these activities the same way he saw the ocean — through a window.

This caught my attention because it says a lot of what writers do: watching activities through their window of imagination and not actually taking part in that activity. As Wilson wrote ("In My Room") he spent a lot of time in his room imagining what was happening outside.

I grew up surfing in Daytona Beach, Florida. I surfed for five years, 13-18-years-old. I gave it up the summer of 1969. My surfboard, a Greg Noll Bug, was stolen out of my family's garage. It was the last board I owned and the only short board. I also sold my beat-up old car that summer as freshmen weren't allowed to have cars on campus. Our house burned down, destroying the kitchen, my school clothes, and my father's Barracuda, 'Cuda as the cool kids called it. My eight brothers and sisters and my parents survived and we moved to cramped motel rooms. The End Times were coming, or so it seemed. I began to have dark thoughts, imagined a black ball rotating in my chest. My girlfriend was pretty and nice but she was going off to the state school and I was going to another state's school 400 miles away. I was slated to be a NROTC midshipman and I had no idea why except the Navy agreed to pay my way if I agreed to get ship-shape and squared-away which I failed at miserably.

Depression came to call. I returned home to my beach town, lied in bed, listening to surf sounds drifting up from the beach and rolling through my jalousie windows.

Brian Wilson suffered with crippling depression. I know how that feels. Wilson laid in bed and looked through windows and saw different lives. His head was populated with beaches and endless streets to race cars and meet girls. His head and heart were also populated with monsters and he didn't really write about them. He looked out windows and saw himself. 

When he was 20, Canadian Steven Page wrote the song "Brian Wilson" which was later recorded by his band, Barenaked Ladies. When he heard it, Wilson wrote his own version. But lyrics in the original go like this:

So I’m lyin’ here 

Just starin’ at the ceiling tiles

And I’m thinkin’ about

What to think about

Just listenin’ and relistenin’

To smiley smile

And I’m wonderin’ if this is

Some kind of creative drought because

I’m lyin’ in bed

Just like Brian Wilson did

Well I’m

I’m lyin’ in bed, just like Brian Wilson did, oh

So,

If everybody had an ocean

Across the USA

Everybody'd be surfin'

In Cal-if-or-ni-a

Or lyin' in bed, just like Brian Wilson did.

 R.I.P. Brian.

Trees can soothe the beast of depression

Fun fact for Arbor Day: 

There are now 99 elms encircling the CSU Oval and lining its walkways.

So reports an April 2022 story on Colorado State University's web site, Literally just 46 facts about CSU's trees. 

Literally, it was interesting stuff. 

Here's a few other items from the CSU list:

When CSU was first founded 1870, it was located on a treeless prairie. 

Some of the [elm] trees are 80 to 90 feet high, and their roots are 1.5 times their height. 

This one is a surprise:

The Heritage Arboretum/Woody Plant Demonstration and Research Area has the largest collection of woody plants in the region, with more than 1,100 different taxa represented. 

The Arboretum is on the south end of campus, within shouting distance of the new stadium. It's surprising because I passed through this site many times during grad school and didn't know it was an arboretum. Time now for a return visit.

The Oval elms are special. During the spring and summer of 1991, as I worked on my M.F.A. in creative writing, I was gobsmacked by severe depression, I found solace among the elms. As noted, they are sturdy and tall, providing shade for the lawn and itinerant students who need some elm goodness to buck up their spirits. I would bike on over to the Oval, prop myself against a tree, read and study. The tree gave me strength. At the time, I thought they were cottonwoods but it didn't really matter. Trees carry energy and silently impart strength to those humans who take the time to appreciate them. I took antidepressants for the first time but it took a long time for them to work. Meanwhile, I had trees. 

I'd dealt with depression before. When I was an undergrad, a break-up caused me to go sleepless for a week. That was the first time I saw a therapist and talked it through. This was 1975 and pre-Prozac. I was 24 and pleased. I faced the beast and came out the better for it. 

During the next couple decades, I muddled through. Married, had a kid, worked various jobs in Denver until I went to school. After I turned 40, family issues took me back to therapy and anti-Ds. I kicked the drugs several times but the result was always the same. Finally, a psychiatrist in Cheyenne issued a mandate: You'll be on these the rest of your life. And, thus far, I have been.

While the meds percolate through my system, I walk among the trees. It's never been a mystery to me that elms and maples have healing qualities. Psychology Today writes about "Forest Bathing in Japan." Full immersion in the forest. PT referenced a 2012 Outside magazine first-person article by Florence Williams, Take Two Hours of Pine Forest and Call Me in the Morning. Here's the subhead:

These days, screen-addicted Americans are more stressed out and distracted than ever. And there’s no app for that. But there is a radically simple remedy: get outside. Florence Williams travels to the deep woods of Japan, where researchers are backing up the theory that nature can lower your blood pressure, fight off depression—and even prevent cancer.

These days, I need assistance when walking. I'm missing out on forest bathing. But last time I was in the mountains, last September, I sat under pines as my family joined friends in a hike on Vedauwoo's Turtle Rock Trail. I'm usually the one leading these and may again if the docs can get to the bottom of my disability. I can park my rollator walker under any tree. And breathe deeply. 

Happy belated Arbor Day.

Strong mind, strong body -- take your pick

Just added to my reading list: "Blue Dreams: The science and the story of the drugs that changed our minds" by Lauren Slater. I will tackle it once I finish "Lincoln in the Bardo" by George Saunders.

"Blue Dreams" is a non-fiction account of psychiatric drugs and their effects by someone who is both a patient and a psychologist.

"Lincoln in the Bardo" is a novel that explores something that seems a lot like severe depression and PTSD in Abraham Lincoln, who is mourning the death of his 11-year-old son, Willie, in 1862.

Would Lincoln have benefited from a regimen of Prozac or other SSRIs? Perhaps. Maybe he would have recovered from his dark moods more quickly with a couple hits of Molly or LSD.

We'll never know. But psychedlics figure into Slater's book. Party drug MDMA (Molly) has been tested on those with PTSD. It has shown some remarkable and lasting results. As Slater recently described it on NPR's "Fresh Air:" those who take Molly and relive their trauma are able to shift that experience into another section of the brain, possibly the prefrontal cortex, helping remove it from the "fight or flight" amygdala. They can then get a handle on a horrible memory without degenerating into bouts of anxiety or self-harm, even suicide.

Slater wonders if this experimentation may lead to another golden age of drug therapy. The previous golden age brought on by lithium and Prozac may be nearing its end. Slater testifies that medications have helped her stay sane, raise a family and write books. They also have shortened her life.

That's the trade-off. So goes the old witticism: "Sound mind. Sound body. Take your pick." After five stays in psychiatric facilities between the ages of 13 to 24, Slater's doctors discovered Prozac. In a rush of Seratonin-laced good will, she finsihed finished her education, married, had two children and embarked on a writing career.

Then came trouble, in the form of the return of depression  and the start of her use of Zyprexa, which caused her to gain weight and lose her libido.

We patients are guinea pigs. Researcher still don't know the inner workings of these drugs. And their long-term effects. If you are in the midst of a severe depression, you want immediate help. Doesn't happen. Prozac or Zoloft may alleviate the symptoms eventually. Studies have shown that two-thirds  of those with depression would recover just as well with a placebo. That's depressing enough. Add side-effects into the mix and you have to wonder what in the hell we are doing.

I have been taking antidepressants for almost 30 years. I feel better, go off them, and crash. One of my psychiatrists once lectured me: "You have to stay on these the rest of your life. You have depression."

That made an impression. Unfortunately, I don't always listen. I went off my Zoloft six years ago and the walls came crashing down. I was out of work for a month. My psychiatrist at the time, who fled Wyoming for Hawaii one winter and never came back, tried a return to Zoloft and then several other meds. We finally went back to Prozac with a nighttime dose of Remeron. Several months later, I felt better but also was back exercising on a regular basis and eating right, which helped. Also, I was in talk therapy with a therapist and regularly saw my psychiatrist. Still, that summer I was still experiencing bouts of depression interspersed with anxiety. It probably took a good six months for my moods to stabilize.

Six months later, on Jan. 2, 2013, I had a heart attack. I recovered quicker from a "widow maker" than I did from depression. Got more help, too. Add an inept mental health care system to the fact that the docs know so little about the drugs and the human mind. That makes for a killer cocktail of ignorance. At least I have both Medicare and private insurance which enables me to navigate the system without going broke.

But I am not only here to complain. I am here to critique books. "Lincoln in the Bardo" is a wild ride and I'm only on page 98. This is how an award-winning short story writer writes a novel. Truly unique. I am a short story writer working on a novel. I find encouragement in Saunders work.

I have ordered Slater's book. I, too, would like to know what happens with long-term use of these drugs. My life depends on it.

Artistic and mentally ill and homeless in Cheyenne

What happens when you go to an art opening and you run into an old family friend who has descended so far into mental illness that she is homeless?

Her name is the letter A. I know her real name but I can't bring myself to use it. I don't know what's going to happen to her and wonder what I can do about it.

On Thursday, I attended the opening of the new Hynds Building gallery space featuring six of our finest artists. I was perusing Georgia Rowswell's fabric work when a woman in black sidled up to me. She wore a big floppy hat and a black coat over a leotard top and jeans. I knew her right away. She once worked at the coffee shop across the street from the Hynds. She's a local, went to school with my son. She has a son, whom I remember as a elementary school kid. A is a talented artist and musician.

I hugged her. She started crying. "You recognized me," she said through tears. I asked her what was going on. She said her 12-year-old son had run away, everyone was plotting against her, and last night, as she slept in an alley, a man urinated on her.

I was shocked. It skewed my evening art adventure.

As A told her tale, I realized how far she had sunk into despondency. When I say that, I mean mental illness. She had no place to stay, although she told me that some guy had let her use his apartment but other guys kept hitting on her. This is a good-looking woman in her 30s. I am old enough to be her father or grandfather. She and my 32-year-old son used to hang out in the same artsy crowd.

Isn't it dangerous out on the streets for a homeless woman? I suggested she go to the homeless shelter. She told me that she had been banned but that was OK with her because all the people there wore pentagrams and were Satanists. She couldn't go into most of the downtown businesses because she had been banned for various reasons which I was just beginning to understand.

She said she was hungry so I steered her to one of the food tables. She ate hummus and crackers. Filled her traveling cup with punch. "For later," she said. Other people came up to talk to us but quickly veered away when they saw my companion. A looked like an artsy person but people seemed to know to steer clear. She was known. How come I didn't know? Where had I been? Retired, I guess. Old and out of the way.

Meanwhile, my phone kept buzzing. My daughter was texting from an ER at a hospital in Fort Collins. She had experienced a bad reaction to the anaesthesia used in Wednesday's ECT treatment in Boulder. I was caught up in one of those texting rounds when everyone seems to be talking over each other. I was worried that I would have to rescue my daughter from the ER and bring her home. There had been plenty of calls and texts like this during the past few years. Sometimes my wife and I went to her aid. Sometimes we did not, as she has spent time in recovery centers in L.A. and Chicago.

I felt bad for A, but kept thinking, "Hey, I have my own problems." It was clear by now that A was homeless because she did what many mentally ill do. They elude available help because they are paranoid or schizophrenic or drug-addicted or an alcoholic or any combination of these things. The helpers are out to get her because they tell her what to do and how to behave. She freaks out and hits the streets. She sleeps in an alley and a guy pisses on her.

I am upset because I know this person to be a sane, creative person, a single mom who took care of her son, at least when I knew her. I took the last resort and offered her money, I had $100 in my pocket that I was going to spend on drinks or a small art piece. I gave her $40. She said it would get her food and maybe help with a room. I was going to ask if she was going to spend it on drugs or booze. But I didn't have the heart.

As I walked her out of the gallery, we passed a musician and his son. They were homeless themselves at one time. The musician plays his guitar on street corners and the farmer's market. He took one look at A, grabbed his son and hurried off. This was odd as it is usually what I feel like doing when I see him.

I told A that I had to go because my daughter might need me down in Fort Collins. I told her that my daughter was having ECT treatments. She panicked, told me not to do that as it can erase your brain. She then turned her attention to The Hole on Lincolnway hidden behind the Atlas Theatre banner. She pointed to the corner of the rubble-strewn hole. "I used to make a fire there -- it's out of the wind," she said. OK. We walked on. We ran into a downtown entrepreneur known for his libertarian rock 'n' roll roots. He asked what I was doing. "Visiting with an old friend," I said. He shook my hand, looked askance at A. He then disappeared into the Crown Bar. "He doesn't like me," she said."I'm banned from his store."

I got to my car and got in. I said good-bye, said I would meet her a 5 the following evening across from the gallery. I didn't go, as I was taking my daughter to an ECT treatment in Boulder. While there, her psychiatrist admitted her to the hospital for a 72-hour hold. She has been self-harming and threatened to do more. I left her there and headed back to Cheyenne on my own. I carried with me that old sinking feeling, that my daughter will never get better.

On the streets of Cheyenne is a homeless 30-something woman. She once was a family friend.

My mentally ill daughter is not homeless but could be. How come she seeks out help and A does not? All mental illnesses are not alike. A does not equal B. My daughter has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, severe depression and borderline personality disorder. She can hold intelligent conversations. She is a musician and is a talented painter. She cuts her arms with razors.

I read the news today in The Denver Post. It was about a 13-year-old Latina nicknamed Bella in Thornton . She hung herself while her family gathered downstairs making fajitas to celebrate her sister's fiance's birthday. Bella had been the target of cyber-bullying and just couldn't take it anymore.

Even in death, this life doesn't make any sense.

As the election nears, remember America's broken mental health care system

The mental health of veterans is tied to the mental health of civilians.

I am not a veteran.  I am a civilian with mental health issues. Depression is in my DNA. I can't help it. I can, however, do something about it. A conscious choice that can only be made when I am not in the grip of a depressive episode. That's how tricky it is.

I'm always on the lookout for Catch-22 analogies.

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.  

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. 

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.”  

With depression, it works like this. When you are depressed, you need help. You have to ask for it as nobody else knows you are depressed because you look normal although you may not act normal, whatever that is. If you ask for help, that is a sign that you are coming out of depression. Have some pills, the doc says and sends you on your way to recovery.

It gets worse before it gets better. It takes time for the medications to kick in. With the pills comes talk therapy with a psychiatrist or a therapist or both. This also takes time to bear results. Meanwhile, you have to get on with your life. There's work to do, soldiering to get done, families to raise, bills to pay. None of this waits on your mental health. If your job and family permits it, as mine did a few years ago, you can take a month off of work to allay your latest depressive episode. Some people would rather work through it, take their mind off the problem. But what happens if you can't?

There's a TV ad for Trintellix, a new depression medication. It shows a man trying to get involved in gardening with his wife. A thought balloon perches over his head. Inside is a jumble of colorful spaghetti strands that seem to represent the tangled web depression causes. If you take Trintellix, the word "me" magically emerges from the spaghetti. It's not magic, really, but pharmacological. Antidepressants now can be targeted to the brain's synapses a lot better than when I took my first dose of Prozac 25 years ago. I'm not sure of the science but I'm going to look it up. I'm always looking it up.

My Catch-22 analogy isn't perfect. But it does illustrate the quandary of a person with clinical depression, or with any kind of mental illness. You find yourself in an illogical, Catch-22 universe. It makes no sense. It makes perfect sense.

On my growing stack of books to read is Bruce Springsteen's biography, Born to Run. One of the best-known performers in the world has struggled with depression. Interesting, isn't it, that the man who known for rousing anthems and hour-long encores, can also be battered into submission by the blues. The real blues. The kind that's as physical as a heart attack or leukemia.

Chris and I saw Springsteen in concert during his "Born in the U.S.A." tour in Denver in the mid-1980s. It was September and it snowed at Mile High Stadium. We didn't mind. Springsteen and the band didn't seem to mind. Maybe they minded but it didn't stop them. That's kind of how depression feels. You mind that it's there but you play on. The show must go on, as theatre people say.

Springsteen might have been depressed that day. I was, until I went to the concert. I then was uplifted.

The song, "Born in the U.S.A.," focuses on the Vietnam War and the problems veterans had when they returned home. Not a whitewashed Lee Greenwood or Charlie Daniels vision of wartime trauma. War can transform you, just as childhood traumas can. Some psychiatrists say that childhood trauma can exacerbate PTSD sparked by combat. We also know that people who have been no closer to combat than Donald Trump or Dick Cheney can struggle with PTSD. It's all in your head, man! Last time I checked, my head was attached to rest of me.

It's real. That's why it's so difficult to hear someone like Trump belittle the problems of veterans. After Oct. 9's "debate," Jon Soltz sent out an e-mail call for donations. Here's his pitch:

I am filled with profound sadness after watching Donald Trump's behavior before tonight's debate.  

I started VoteVets after returning from Iraq because veterans, military family members, and those who support them need elected representation that recognizes the cost of war continues long after the last service member returns home.  

This is a presidential election. We deserve a debate on these issues. Every veteran who has ever served deserves better than what Donald Trump has done to the process of deciding our next Commander in Chief.

Contribute to VoteVets here: https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/defeat-trump?refcode=em161009

I am not a veteran. I state this as a matter of fact. I approach this issue not from personal experience as a warrior but as a civilian. It's academic and personal. My kids both struggle with mental health issues. So do I.

My weapons are words.

Donald Trump has no mental health plan in his platform. Hillary Clinton does.

As Jon Soltz says, we deserve a debate on these issues. We still haven't had one. All of us struggling with mental illness deserve better.

Never too late for a wellness class

Chris and I are attending a wellness class at the YMCA.

The class uses a text entitled "Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Conditions." It outlines self-management tools based on "an ongoing series of studies conducted at Stanford University School of Medicine." Stanford, founded by robber baron Leland Stanford, is known for many things. It helped spawn the computer revolution, trained numerous NFL players and sponsors a kooky marching band (go you Cardinal!). And I have nothing against robber barons -- with them we wouldn't have Stanford's Wallace Stenger poetry fellowships, the many Carnegie libraries that taught generation to love books, and Grand Teton National Park (thanks Rockefeller family). Our current crop of high-tech billionaires seem to be trying to follow in the footsteps of their elders, although our grandkids will have to judge their legacies.

I'd be lying if I said the book's Stanford connection didn't impress me. There are some elitist bones in my body. But the book is a good and helpful and logical. We all need self-management skills when it comes to our health. Too often, we don't sail our own ship, health-wise, and that leads to many problems down the line -- heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, asthma and, as the book notes, "other physical and mental health conditions." Notice that latter term -- mental health conditions. The book stresses links between physical and mental health. Very important. You really can't have one without the other.

Pages 8-9 lists the management skills recommended for an array of chronic conditions. Categories include pain management, fatigue management, breathing techniques, relaxation and managing emotions, nutrition, exercise and medications. Notice that "medications" is last? I did. I take a boatload of meds for my heart disease, but also pay attention to the other categories, especially exercise and nutrition. I would like to wean myself off some heart meds. This is a challenge, as the drug lobby is adamant we use its products and never get off of them. Out docs are complicit in this strategy. They may also need this wellness class.

The series of six classes are led by two women who were trained in the process. Each class involves note-taking and brainstorming and action plans. We often choose partners to work on action plans. Our workshop leaders call during the week to check up on our progress, or lack of it.

Is the class worth it? Not sure, as I'm only halfway through. I probably will miss the last two sessions, as I'm getting a new knee Feb. 3. Takes a good month to get back in the action. But wellness is important and I wish that I'd taking it seriously sooner. At 65, I have several chronic conditions: heart disease, arthritis, depression. A better lifestyle would have spared me the heart condition. Arthritis and bad knees show the wear-and-tear of time, and many years of basketball and running. Depression runs in the family.

I'd like to sum up by saying something memorable about living life to the fullest. Must be a gazillion quotes and thousands of memes on the subject.

Here's one: "Be here now," coined by writer/philosopher Ram Dass for his book of the same name..

Here's another: "One day at a time," something I heard once or twice at Twelve-Step meetings.

"So it goes" from Kurt Vonnegut.

What comes first -- the writing or the crazy?

The Electric Lit site carries some cool articles about the writing life. A recent one was about writers and mental health. I've often wondered; what comes first, the writing or the crazy? Are people drawn to writing because they are crazy? Does the solitude and navel-gazing of writing lead to depression? It's possible that the writing just deepens an existing depression. 

Here's some possible explanations:

The Swedish researchers offer one potential explanation for their results: social drift. Individuals with severe mental illness often have a hard time holding a steady job. Some may turn to self-employment—including in artistic fields. But it’s not clear why this should apply more to writers than to other artists.

Another possible explanation can be drawn from the theory of depressive realism, which essentially claims that depressed people are depressed because they see the world as it is—depressing. They are “sadder but wiser.” Writers have to be careful observers of human nature and society. Painters and composers can take inspiration from suffering; but writers have to: drama comes from misery—comedy, perhaps even more so. Depressive realists may often be drawn to writing for this reason.

Writers (me included) love to include our bizarre jobs in our bio. Chicken plucker. Tobacco picker. Manny. Before he was drafted, author Tim O'Brien worked at a slaughterhouse. Slaughterhouse Five author Kurt Vonnegut wrote ad copy at GE. Poet Philip Levine worked the assembly line at the Chevy plant. Poet and fiction writer Lolita Hernandez worked 30 years at the Detroit Caddy plant. Some writers take odd jobs in order to write about them. George Plimpton and Barbara Ehrenreich come to mind. 

Because "author of the great American novel" is not a job category on Craig's List, writers need jobs. Judy Blume once was asked about the first thing that a writer should do. "Get a job," was her reply. That's what we used to yell at our fellow surfers when we drove down Daytona Beach. "Get a job!" Surfers are faced with the same dilemma confronted by writers. Surf or work? Or... What's the best job to have where I can surf in the morning and make gobs of money doing a brainless activity at night? 

Some of us insist on getting day jobs as writers. In Denver, I wrote sports and features for daily newspapers and suburban weeklies. I was managing editor of an entertainment weekly. I was a free-lance editor and writer and, later, an editor of corporate publications where I wrote about fan belts and rubber hoses.  Until you've read one of my scintillating pieces about a Gates fan belt, well,  nevermind -- I wouldn't subject you to that. I did write a humor column about the strange creatures who inhabited the corporate parking lot. One day, I was summoned into the chief's office:

Chief (crankily): We must write something about the crazy drivers in the parking lot. I almost was run over twice this morning.
Me (enthusiastically):We could publish a boring missive from one of our vice presidents who could chide his minions about their bad behavior.
Chief (frowning): Think of something better.
Me (smiling stupidly): May I take the week off to go to the mountains? I think a lot better up there.
Chief (glowering): Take a slow walk in the parking lot of quitting time. That should give you some ideas.

I did as he suggested and almost got run over twice. I immediately went home and was greeted by a squawking brood of children. They reminded me of a flock of crows (technically, a murder of crows) and I was inspired to turn the parking lot transgressors into various kinds of misbehaving birds. The chief was so impressed that he promised not to fire me that week.

What does this have to do with writers and depression? While I was writing it, I wasn't depressed. One maxim I learned about depression is this: "When depressed, learn something." You could change that to "write something." While you're writing, you're otherwise engaged. It doesn't cure depression, but may hold it at bay for awhile. It's a physical disease, as physical as allergies or cancer. To keep it at bay, I write. I also take two different antidepressants, exercise regularly, eat a healthy diet and learn something new every day. I also work a steady job that involves writing and editing. It takes time from my fiction writing, but if I didn't do it, I would have no insurance and no income. I could abandon it all, go to Florida and become a beach bum. Then I'd have a bunch of punk surfers yelling at me to get a job. It would be deja vu all over again. I couldn't help being depressed.

"Depression is a beast that no one should have to face alone"

I've written about my own depression on these pages. I've written about my daughter's struggle with depression and borderline personality disorder. I've written about the suicides of veterans and family friends. I've discussed Wyoming's alarming teen suicide rate and the predilection of boys and men in The Cowboy State to turn a weapon on themselves when things go bad.

Philanthropist and arts patron Mick McMurry of Casper committed suicide this week. He was 69, five years older than me. I saw him most recently at the Governor's Arts Awards Gala in Cheyenne two weeks ago. We knew each other from afar, as people who saw each other occasionally at arts events and other gatherings. In Wyoming (pop. 580,000), many of us are acquainted. It is sad when one of those acquaintances is suffering and we don't know about it and can't do a thing about it.

This story by Tom Morton appeared Friday on the K2 Radio web site with the headline: ‘Depression Is A Beast’: McMurry Family Vows Greater Mental Health Awareness After Mick’s Death:

Mick McMurry’s mental health rapidly declined after back surgery in February, which led to his suicide earlier this week, his daughter and a family spokesman said Friday.  

“This is somebody who’d never been sick and never had taken much medicine, and it had an after-effect of some depression,” George Bryce said at a news conference at the home of Susie and Mick McMurry.  

“Depression manifests itself in many different ways, and can sneak up on you,” Bryce said. “Some people that suffer from depression have a way of hiding it. And we knew that something wasn’t quite right, and we were kind of saying, ‘is that really Mick?,’ and then the next day it was really Mick,” he said.

 --clip --  

“Depression is a beast that no one should have to face alone,” Trudi McMurry Holthouse said. 

Holthouse said her father’s decline was quick after the surgery. Her father would refer to a gathering “black cloud,” yet he hid the symptoms well, she said. 

“He’s so poised about himself and handling people,” Holthouse said. “The way I looked at it was just a change of heart like an enlightening was happening and he was coming to us with deep sorrow and grief,” Holthouse said. 

The family supported him, but that apparently wasn’t enough, she said. 

“It just got to be such a burden, he couldn’t bear it anymore, Holthouse said. “His body had never failed him like this before. He had never not had a clarity of mind, and his heart was just so heavy, but you know, we didn’t know, we didn’t know how heavy it was.” 

Bryce, a trustee with the the McMurry Foundation, said mental health long has been the step-child of the overall health care system and people need to be more aware and aware of what’s happening in others’ lives. 

The McMurry Foundation has supported mental health and depression awareness, but her father’s death will sharply change that because she wouldn’t wish that on anyone, Holthouse said. 

“You can bet there will be some things that we will now be more focused on and take note to help more people. You just never know when someone is as desperate and destitute as that,” she said. “It will be a priority.”

Read more here: Family: Post-Surgery Depression Lead to McMurry's Suicide

Let's all make a vow to improve mental health care in Wyoming. As I write this, my daughter is a patient at Wyoming Behavioral Institute (WBI) in Mick McMurry's home town of Casper. She is at WBI after spending four months at the Wyoming State Hospital and then a week at a group home in Douglas. She's been in and out of treatment centers since she was 14. She's made several suicide attempts. We want to keep her safe. We want her to get the correct treatment for her smorgasbord of mental health impairments. Not too much to ask, right?

In Wyoming, it may be.

Ireland's Great Hunger lives on

"Skibbereen 1847" by Cork artist James Mahony (1810–1879), commissioned by The Illustrated London News, 1847

I have never been hungry enough to eat grass or old shoe leather.

Ireland's Great Hunger starved a million Irish and sent many packing for America. Some starved and sickened along the way in the so-called coffin ships. Those left at home ate anything they could find. Many starved anyway.

Our English overlords stood by and did nothing. They did import corn to Ireland but none of the starvelings could afford it. Some relief came from unexpected sources. Knowing what it was like to starve on "The Trail of Tears," Cherokees in Oklahoma sent food to the Irish. The Turks did too.

A mythology builds up around any earth-shaking event that causes the diaspora of hundreds of thousands of people. The Irish have immortalized the Great Hunger in song and story and art. Family stories, too. My own Shay relatives left Ireland for the U.S. in 1847. They farmed in New England and then moved to Iowa, where they prospered. They may have hungered and thirsted through the years, when drought and pestilence visited the Iowa City area. But they were never threatened with starvation of the type they faced in Ireland.

Even amidst prosperity, does the Great Hunger linger within us?

According to an article on the Irish Central web site:

Irish historian Oonagh Walsh believes that the Great Hunger triggered a higher rate of mental illness among later generations, including both those who stayed in Ireland and those who emigrated. 

She believes that severe nutritional deprivation between 1845-1850 caused "epigenetic change." Here's more:

Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression. These do not necessarily involve changes to the genetic code, but the effects may persist for several generations. Walsh estimated that the impact from epigenetic change from the Great Hunger lasted for a century and a half.  

Walsh’s research is still at an early stage, but she expects to see a correlation between the high rates of mental illness and the effects of maternal starvation. She also thinks there may be a connection between the Great Hunger and cardiovascular and other diseases.

Just think about this a bit. We all know that mental and physical traits can "run in a family." Red hair, height, odd behavior. Remember Aunt Clara? We had to keep her in the attic -- she thought she was the Queen of Sheba.

What if our genes, damaged by cataclysmic hunger, contributed to Aunt Clara's delusions?

Researchers have been busily studying the causes of mental illness for generations. Genetics play a role. Trauma, too, as in PTSD. And what is starvation if not a major trauma, as important as war or torture or physical abuse?

Walsh has also researched the dramatic growth in Irish lunatic asylums in the 19th century. The first was built a dozen years before the potato famine. But it continued well into the latter part of the century, along with increased patient populations. They included those with behavior problems as well as "lunatics at large." Families stashed their problem children in the asylums; Aunt Clara too. Husbands stashed inconvenient wives in asylums, freeing them to marry a newfound love interest.

The U.S. built asylums, too. Many are now closed, the sites of horrendous treatment of patients, torture and murder. Others grew up as medications and treatment options improved.

The Wyoming State Hospital in Evanston opened in 1887, three years before statehood, and was first called the Wyoming Insane Asylum. I don't have to imagine "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" scenes or strait jackets and padded rooms and lobotomies -- I'm sure all of that happened there as it did at other asylums, from Ken Kesey's Oregon State Hospital to the notorious Trenton State Hospital in New Jersey. Society's cast-offs are always treated badly.

We are now enlightened. We have super-drugs for the mentally ill. Our treatment has gone beyond shock therapy and mind-numbing drugs. We are stardust. We are golden.

If only that were true.

Anyone with a mentally ill family member knows the challenges of finding the right treatments. This isn't a problem faced only by rural states such as Wyoming. It is a problem everywhere.

It is refreshing to see researchers such as Oonagh Walsh dig deeper into the origins of mental illness. Perhaps my grandfathers' depression was due to being shell-shocked in World War I. Perhaps it was part of the epigenetic change inflicted on his Irish forebears. That doesn't help him, as he's long gone. But it might help me, an aging Irish-American who also suffers from depression.

It may also help my daughter, who's had major struggles with her mental illness since she was 14. She now is a patient as the place formerly known as the Wyoming Insane Asylum. Her parents are now trying to help her in any way we can. Some of that is practical parental involvement. We are strong advocates for our daughter. Knowledge is part of that. We more we know, the better.

And this is what feeds my imagination: the vision of a starving mother in 1847 scouring the fields of County Cork for a few grains of barley. Her future depends on it. She may starve, but the memory of it will last for generations.    

Or you could just say "cowboy up!"

This neat graphic comes from Robot Hugs via Science Dump.

Some final words about Mental Health Awareness Week

I could not let Mental Health Awareness Week go by without commenting.

The week, promoted by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), was a week filled with a flurry of social media posts, including a series of images (see one above). Thursday, Oct. 9, was National Depression Screening Day. I’ve already had mine – several in fact -- and depression was located in various regions of my body – my heart, my celebral cortex, my Islets of Langerhans. I take meds for it, see my psychiatrist every six months and my therapist every week. I work out at the YMCA every other day and eat right.

Last weekend I made chili for the Broncos game. This is not a recommended treatment for depression. Following the Broncos may even cause depression – the jury’s still out. I make my own chili because I love chili and the store-bought variety comes with tons of salt. Too much salt causes my heart to work harder to get rid of fluid build-up. An overworked heart negates the medication I take to keep it calm and reliable. An overworked heart may go into a fatal arrhythmia and would cause my ICD to kick in which, in turn, would cause me to flop around on the floor like a fish. Depression would follow, as would stares of passers-by.

Homemade chili, you see, can ease both heart disease and depression. Mine features lots of pepper slices and tomatoes, our planet’s super-food. No-salt-added tomato sauce. It’s meaty with the lowest-fat hamburger I can find. Flavoring is a problem that no amount of Mrs. Dash, cumin, and chili power can remedy. Our taste buds are primed for salt and lots of it. We need some salt as our body’s origins are in the briny deep. I’m still working on that part of the chili challenge.

It’s not that easy to get the same attention for mental illness as is given to heart disease. I’m pleased that heart disease gets lots of attention and much funding. I might not be alive if that were not the case. I am pleased that my local hospital has a spiffy new cancer center and that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Everyone wears pink, even NFL players and cowboys (at least they do every summer at the CFD Rodeo's "Tough enough to wear pink" day). As for the NFL -- those were some bitchin’ pink cleats that the Houston and Indy players were wearing on Thursday Night Football. Good game, too.

I didn’t spy many green ribbons or green shoes this week. As I said, social media lit up with references to depression and schizophrenia and bipolar. USA Today did a series on mental illness and suicide. Nice job – I read it all. Shocking stats revealed that 40,000 Americans killed themselves last year. It’s shocking enough that an average of 22 military veterans take their lives daily. But to really be shocked, you have to read their stories. Many don’t get any help at all, or the right kind of help. But many do and still kill themselves. Many civilians with mental illnesses don’t get any help at all, or can’t afford it, or don’t get the proper treatments. They jump off bridges or shoot themselves or OD on pills with alarming regularity. Does that mean it’s hopeless? No, but people who feel hopeless may not get help because of the stigma attached to mental illness or the “cowboy up” mentality that we have in Wyoming and other western states. “Cowboy up” is not a helpful response to someone who needs help. “Tough it out” or “lighten up” – also not helpful responses. But you can’t really blame people. If they haven’t experienced a mental health challenge themselves or with a friend or family members, they may be clueless.

I walk around with an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator in my chest. My wife Chris walks around with an insulin pump on her hip. We often get into lively discussions with people with heart disease and diabetes. We compare experiences and devices. Growing old, it seems, is filled with these types of conversations. Having a heart attack gives you carte blanche to bore everyone silly with your story.

Want to stop a lively conversation in its tracks? Bring up mental illness. Chris was at a community gathering this week and was having a good old time talking to old friends about her meter and my ICD. Lots of people have encounters with heart abnormalities and blood sugar levels. But when they asked about our daughter -- let's call her Margaret -- and Chris told them she was in a mental health treatment center, the conversation stopped. Crickets chirped. Tumbleweeds rolled through the room. The friends excused themselves and Chris was left standing there, an intriguing story hanging from her lips.

Too bad they didn’t stick around to hear the story. Margaret has received a variety of diagnoses. Bipolar. Borderline personal disorder, with and without bipolar. Severe depression. She’s a cutter too, you see, which usually freaks out the uninitiated. It freaked me out when I first found out about it. She’s used knives, box cutters, razors and even broken glass to carve a topo map of scars on her arms and legs and stomach. It’s a constant reminder of her traumas. It will always be a reminder to her as the challenges she faced as a teen and young woman. She may arrive at a place where she can live with her mental illness, maybe even outgrow the worst symptoms. But she’ll always have the scars. When she’s 63 as I am now, her grandchildren may ask, “Grandma, where did you get those scars?” She can tell any story she wants, as grandparents do. But I have a feeling she will share the truth. That may help them somewhere down the line. This mental illness runs in our family, you see, and DNA has a funny way of replicating itself. Science may come up with answers. Better, more targeted drugs with fewer side-effects. Better and more widely available therapy. Less stigma. Empathy breaking out all over.

Meanwhile, there are social media images to post and blogs to write. Chili warms on the stove. Life is a series of little treatments, tiny steps, unexpected laughter. Sorrow awaits you around every turn. Be aware.      

Artist gives life to depression and its cousins

From the Daily Mail in the U.K.:

Toby Allen, a Cornish artist, has imagined what eight common mental illnesses would look like if they were monsters.

He drew what he believed anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, social anxiety, avoidant personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, paranoia and dissociative identity disorder would look like as monsters.

Allen said: ‘The artwork is not at all intended to make light of these conditions but instead is intended to give these intangible mental illnesses some substance and make them appear more beatable as physical entities.’

For starters, he has a pretty good take on depression.

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2449864/Artist-Toby-Allen-imagines-mental-illness-monsters.html#ixzz2k1WlVmDA 

As the song says, "Let the sunshine in!"

I don't personally know the two presenters at the May 16 library workshop entitled "Letting the Sunshine in." But it's one of six mental health sessions sponsored by the Wyoming Department of Health, Stop Suicide Cheyenne, Grace for 2 Brothers and the Jason Foundation under the header of "From Just Surviving to Thriving!" Great organizations all!

Here's a tip from someone who's struggled with depression for most of his adult life. If you are depressed, don't think it will go away if you just think good thoughts or watch cheery movies. They may help. But real depression is not a passing sadness. Watching "The Sound of Music" 20 times will not banish it to the deepest reaches of your reptilian brain. The flyer for the session, led by Jonna Hilzer-Dickie (M.A., L.P.C.) and Jon Baillie (M.A., P.P.C.) sums it up pretty well:

Depression is a serious biological disease that affects millions of people each year. The encouraging news is that it can often be successfully treated. Learn ways to stop the dark cloud of depression and anxiety and let your sunshine in!

"Letting the Sunshine In" will be held on Thursday, May 16, 5:30-6:30 p.m., in the Laramie County Public Library's Sunflower Room on the third floor. It's free, and you may learn a lot. There are two more sessions. On June 20, local musician and founder of Rock for Life James Ednie will address his own near brush with suicide via words and music. He also will "offer some tools to cope with tough situations." James will provide tips "on how to not only deal with sadness, but how to celebrate it."

It is true. You can celebrate sadness but acknowledging that it's a normal part of life. I speak not only as someone with depression but as a writer who often spends time with the gloomy thoughts of his characters. Maybe that's why I write in the vein of tragicomedy. LIfe often is like that, isn't it? It's one thing when it happens in fiction. Yet another thing when it happens in real life.

The final session, "Save a Life," takes on the serious topic of suicide prevention. As you probably know, Wyoming is home to the second-most completed suicides, and WY teen suicides lead the nation. The Jason Foundations has this alarming stat on its web site: "Each day in our nation, there are an average of over 5,400 attempts by young people grades 7-12." And don't forget our veterans. Last fall at the Equality State Book Festival in Casper, soldier-poet Brian Turner noted that each day the U.S. loses an average of 18 active duty and retired military to suicides. During the course of a three-day weekend, suicides wipe out the entire platoon that he led in Iraq.

The "Save a Life" training session will go from 5:30-8 p.m. as Stop Suicide Cheyenne presents the Jason Foundation's suicide prevention program for parents. 

Tales from cardiac rehab: The return of S

I posted on Monday about my cardiac rehab buddy S. She was hauled away by EMTs after complaining of chest pain and registering a very high blood pressure.

Glad to report that S returned to rehab on Friday. Once again we were treading treadmills side by side. She's 13 years younger than I am but, as I'm discovering, age doesn't spare you from heart disease. I've met people in their thirties who've had heart attacks. I've met people in their eighties who've had heart attacks. We have cardiac rehab participants who've had angioplasties and stents and single bypasses and quadruple bypasses. We are the lucky ones, the quick rather than the dead.

I'm reading Thriving with Heart Disease: Live Happier, Healthier, Longer by William M. Sotile, Ph.D. When the book was published in 2003, Dr. Sotile was the director of psychological services at the Wake Forest University Cardiac Rehabilitation Program. I checked out the book from the library at my rehab program. Nurse Julee recommended it, and I thank her for that. Sotile recommends an assertive approach to cardiac rehab. He urges us to get a second opinion, and possibly a third or fourth. He writes: "If you haven't been referred to a cardiac rehab program, find out why."

Research shows that people who begin cardiac rehab while still in the hospital and continue with the program after they're home -- even if it's only for a few months -- suffer less anxiety, depression and disability than those who try to manage on their own. Further, both rehab patients and their families have a fuller understanding of the illness and so they are better able as a group to weather the storms that invariably blow in.

I like going to rehab and, thanks to health insurance, can keep it up until I'm well on my way to some sort of normalcy. The CRMC Rehab unit employs a great group of cardiac nurses, exercise therapists and nutritionists who supervise our time on the treadmills, rowing machines and universal equipment. They monitor our vitals and intervene if things are going a bit haywire. Witness their intervention with S earlier in the week. The nurses have been a bit concerned over my low blood pressures and have worked with the cardiologists to fine-tune my many medications. This is the first time I've had to store my meds in a plastic container the size of a shoebox. I can begin to understand a patient's confusion over what drug to take and when. I have a list, and it's constantly changing.

Dr. Sotile notes that there is an aura of mystery surrounding heart attacks:

All known cardiac risk factors combined account for only three out of four cases of heart illness -- the others are attributed to unknown causes.

I have no history of heart disease. My family has no history of heart disease. I don't smoke. I exercise regularly and have lost 30 pounds during the past year. My cholesterol is not abnormally high. I don't have a high-stress job.

I still had a heart attack.

Unknown causes. This appeals to the mystery lover in me. It also speaks to my fiction writer self. Stuff happens. We don't always know why.

Montana leads the nation in suicides; Wyoming not far behind

The darker the state, the higher the suicide rate

The Billings Gazette began a series on Sunday exploring Montana's "suicide epidemic." Montana leads the nation in the per capita suicide rate. Last year, 452 people committed suicide in the state. While Montana has been listed in the top five suicide states the past 35 years, Wyoming is not far behind in this dismal statistic. Take a look at the map and you can see that the northern Rockies are in the "dark zone." Doesn't the outline of Montana's western border look like a sad man's face? Read the series at http://www.billingsgazette.com

The real quandary for the depressed: you often are too depressed to take action

Marjorie Morrison is the author of the recently published "The Inside Battle: Our Military Mental Health Crisis" (Military Psychology Press, $8.99 ebook). Yesterday, she wrote a great column for the Huffington Post. Here are some excerpts:

From 2005 to 2010, service members took their own lives at a rate of about one every 36 hours. There are currently more deaths in the military by suicide then killed in combat. Suicides in the US Army increased 80% in 2004 to 2008. 

This is the excerpt that rang true for me:

A service member who seeks help has significant barriers to overcome. Almost all of us can look back at a time when we felt depressed. Typically, it isn't until after you get through it that you realize how distressed you were. It's difficult enough to ask for help, but considerably harder when one feels hopeless.

This is the problem, isn't it? People who suffer from clinical depression often cannot reach out of that big black hole to get help. In other words, we are too depressed to know we are depressed and too depressed to get the help we need. It often takes someone close to us to urge us on. Unfortunately, we may be too depressed to act. We may pretend that we know better. We may pretend that we are fine.

I am not a veteran. I do come from a long line of veterans who suffered from depression and PTSD. I know what depression feels like. I know how hard it is to reach out to get help.

I was first diagnosed with depression in 1990, when I was 40. I have been on and off antidepressants ever since. More than one psychiatrist has told me this: "Stay on antidepressants. You have clinical depression."

Did I listen? Of course not.

Here is the danger. Antidepressants may seek to work effectively over time. If we are seeing clinicians on a regular basis, they may discover this and switch our meds. If we are not seeing clinicians on a regular basis, who's to know? We may just decide to quit taking Prozac or Zoloft or Mertazapine or Effexor or Wellbutrin or any of the other drugs that help to ward off the hopgoblins.

Big mistake.    

We should pause here to entertain objections from those who think that antidepressants are the work of the devil, or a means to mind control. Any Scientologists in the room? I can see why objections may arise. Many of those who commit suicide are taking antidepressants. It's easy to assume that antidepressants lead to suicide.

When I was embarking on my latest antidepressant regimen, I came across an article about a young Iraq veteran who had committed suicide. Tip for the depressed: never read about suicide when in the throes of depression. The photo in the story showed the vet's bedroom. Near his bed were myriad bottles of pills. One read "Mirtazapine." Thing is, I'd been taking the very same drug at the very same dosage for two weeks. Nothing was happening. I was feeling a bit desperate. Was I ready to kill myself? No. But I was depressed as hell. It would be months and months before that med and several others finally combined to give me some relief.

Now that I am no longer depressed, I realize how depressed I really was. And I am amazed that I am front of you right now, that I am typing on this keyboard and entering fairly sensible words on the screen. Amazed.

I was lucky. I had an understanding wife. I had understanding colleagues at work. I have friends. I have health insurance. I am en ex-jock who knew that exercise can be a way to the other side. I am a writer who believes in journaling. I have an extra dose of Irish cussedness in me -- it keeps me going when things look blackest. I have some wisdom endowed by six decades on the planet. I know how to pray.

What if I was 21, just back from a terrible war? Would I know what to do? I've never had to face that. But thousands of others have to face that every day.

Be kind. That's what combat veteran and ex-POW Kurt Vonnegut used to say. Be kind. He knew that little acts of kindness can go a long way. If nothing else, that's something we can all give to one another.

Be kind.

And take your freakin' meds, ya dimwit!

That's me talking to myself. When I'm feeling right. When I'm not, well, I say nothing.

Depression Lies!

This is one of the posters designed by Laramie's Felicia Follum to mark World Suicide Prevention Day (today) and Suicide Awareness Week. She had this to say about this this poster: "Depression Lies: This poster is in response to the negatives we believe about ourselves. Sometimes we need tough love and someone to tell us that we are worthy of the best. The TRUTH is you are special; to believe you are anything less than beautiful and wonderful is to believe a lie." To this, I add that depression does lie and that very often, it doesn't respond to tough talk or even kindness alone. Those can help, depending on the person, but don't forget that depression is a physical illness that responds to antidepressant medication, although they take weeks and often months to work. So, my advice to my fellow sufferers of melancholia, is this: TALK, EXERCISE AND TAKE YOUR MEDS!

"He had arrived at a cliff, with an abyss before him and a fire behind him"

Meredith Melnick writes in Time Magazine Online today about World Suicide Prevention Day, which will take place on Monday, Sept. 10 (tomorrow):

Every day 3,000 people end their own lives, and for every person who dies, there are 20 more people who unsuccessfully attempt a suicide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In the United States alone, that amounts to one death by suicide every 16 minutes, says the National Council for Suicide Prevention (NCSP).

It’s a bit tricky to figure out how to honor World Suicide Prevention Day and so the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) and the WHO have collaborated on a list of activities for organizations to consider as a way to help support the cause. But what about individuals?

The NCSP launched a “Take 5 to Save Lives” campaign that summarizes how we can all help prevent suicide — simple steps like learning the signs of suicidal behavior, raising awareness by telling other people about the World Suicide Prevention Day, and asking for help if you are concerned about your own thoughts and behavior.

Some suggested activities include holding a press conference, writing an article for your local paper, distributing information about depression, posting the WSPD banner on your blog or web site, lobbying politicians about mental health issues and other activities. Seems to me that "spreading the word" is one of the most helpful things anyone can do, since the stigma surrounding depression and suicide seems to be the strongest barrier to prevention.

Cheyenne author Edith Cook wrote movingly in the Sept. 5 Wyoming Tribune-Eagle about her brother's and niece's suicides. The Sunday Denver Post carried a front-page story about the aftermath of the December 2011 suicide of one of the city's foremost philanthropists, Noel Cunningham. He hung himself in his basement. His wife, Tammy, found his body when she arrived home from work that evening:

"It was really difficult, because all I could see for the next couple weeks was Noel, and the way I found him."

Suicide is especially difficult on those loved ones left behind, especially if it arrives as a ghastly surprise, as it did with Mrs. Cunningham. While she tried to get her husband to open up about his inner pain, he never did.

The most moving and poetic quote from the Post article came from an unexpected place -- former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter's eulogy at the 62-year-old Cunningham's memorial service. He said that Cunningham's manic level of service to his community and to international hunger relief had a "dark brother:"

"Call it depression, or despondency, or despair, but it is real, and it has to be dealt with in this eulogy."

--clip--

"Like many of us in this life," Noel had arrived at a cliff, with an abyss before him and a fire behind him, Ritter said.

"He did not see us, he could not see us, on the other side of the fire, pleading with him, telling him we love him, telling him that we will do anything, anything in the world for him, if he would just let us help him put out the fire, and bring him back from the cliff," Ritter said.

The final powerful lesson that Noel gave us all, Ritter said, "is that self-care matters too, even for the selfless."

Not bad for a politician known more for fiscal austerity than metaphor.

How many people in Wyoming are at this cliff today? Too many. Teens and aging white males are especially vulnerable, or so say the statistics. Wyoming's rapidly greying population has many of the latter group, and they tend to kill themselves in dramatically Western ways -- by gun and by rope.

So spread the word: "You don't have to face the abyss and the fire alone. I am your friend. I can help."

"Good Night, Ryan:" Yet another Iraq veteran dies by his own hand

The film that accompanies Nicholas D. Kristof's New York Times story makes me incredibly sad -- and pisses me off. Why isn't more being done to take care of these young people that we send to war?

THERE’S a window into a tragedy within the American military: For every soldier killed on the battlefield this year, about 25 veterans are dying by their own hands.  

An American soldier dies every day and a half, on average, in Iraq or Afghanistan. Veterans kill themselves at a rate of one every 80 minutes. More than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year — more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since those wars began.

Role-switching and the ADHD family

I can’t help noticing that Frank S. and I are the only members of the male gender posting on the easy to love but hard to raise blog. That’s cool – and not entirely unexpected.

I’m the writer in our family. My wife Chris has ADHD and learning disabilities. Oddly enough, she’s had the jobs that require the most organizational skills. Banking, for one. Supervisor at the local YMCA for another. When I come into the YMCA to exercise or to pick her up for lunch, it seems as if all 8,000 members are there at once. Chris is flitting around the place, attending to member and staff needs. I stand there, amazed, wanting to flee the chaos to the quiet safety of my car. How does she do it? Her ADHD helps her multi-task, yet it also contributes to flittering. I’m standing still, sometimes because I’m depressed and other times because I’m thinking up clever blog posts like this one.

We complement one another.

We’re also a bit of an anomaly. As we’ve seen on this blog, it’s usually the adult male in the relationship who has ADHD. Most diagnoses of childhood ADHD are in boys. Hyper-boys grow up, meet lovely and competent women, sweep them off their feet and into marriage.

My friend L is married to H. H is a psychologist and L has all the traits of an ADHD boy grown into a hyper-adult. He’s a Brainiac but never quite reached his full potential. Wherever he goes, he leaves a trail of chaos in his wake. When all of us lived in Maryland, L said he was coming over the make me a gourmet birthday dinner. He’s a good cook and it gave all of us a chance to hang out.

Later that evening, Chris and I surveyed the kitchen. Every pot and pan in the kitchen was dirty. Red sauce stains were on the walls on the floor. Empty spice containers littered the counter like empty beer cans after a frat party. The stove was still on and cabinet doors remained flung open.

“The meal was good,” I replied, surveying the damage.

“Never again,” said Chris.

After that, we ate out with L and H.

We also were in an Adult ADHD Support Group. The men and one woman (Chris) was in the support group while the women (and one guy – me) shared our horror stories. He never graduated from college. He forgets to pick up the kids from school. Can’t keep a job. He leaves a terrible mess when he cooks dinner. And so on.

This was 1995. The Maryland suburbs that ring D.C. are made up of some of the best-educated people in the U.S. Liberals, mainly, just like me, an out-of-place Westerner. The women were strong and had careers in business or medicine or government.

But even in the closing decade of the 20th century, three decades into the women’s movement, the men were still considered primary breadwinners. So when they have ADHD, they not only struggle with inattention and hyperactivity, they also are underachievers in an overachieving world. And it’s not just their spouses who notice. One of the first questions asked in D.C. is about your work. My buddy L worked at home as a freelancer. Later, he was also a stay-at-home dad. I saw the strange looks that other men gave him. I guessed their thoughts: you’re not even a lobbyist? Remember that this is a place where you can get into policy wonk discussions at any time and any place.

One fine spring day during a clean-up hike of the Potomac with the Cub Scouts, one of the other dads found out that I worked at the National Endowment for the Arts. He was a conservative think-tank lobbyist and proceeded to tell me all the reasons the arts shouldn’t be government funded. Another adult leader chimed in that the arts were crucial and deserved even more federal funding. We were engaged in a lively debate when one of the Scouts came up and told us to get back to work. We looked at each other sheepishly and then returned to the task of picking up Snickers wrappers from the historic trails along the Potomac.

When I first met Chris 33 years ago, I was drawn like a hummingbird to her beauty and her vivacious nature. She was the lively one; I was the laid-back one. Later, she uncovered her learning disabilities and ADHD. I uncovered deep wells of depression. We discovered them, I should say. Some of it came about after the birth and toddlerhood of our son Kevin revealed his ADHD. It took us decades to unwrap all of these secrets. We didn’t do it alone – and it’s an ongoing process.

Cross-posted to easy to love but hard to raise.